The ball sat buried in the back of the net in the 86th minute of play.

Missouri senior midfielder Dominique Richardson stood in the middle of the box, hands held toward the sky, and the sideline official held his unwavering flag high in the air. She was offsides, and the goal was for naught.

“Where I saw it, it was hard for me to see, but I thought she was offsides,” Missouri coach Bryan Blitz said.

The game’s only two goals came within five minutes of each other early in the second half.

Both packs of Tigers struggled out of the gate. Missouri spent most of the first half on the attack, outshooting Auburn seven to three and keeping the majority of possession in the Missouri attacking half.

The sloppy first period sent the teams to the locker rooms with a 0-0 tie on their hands. The two teams combined for 12 fouls in the first half, 30 for the entire game.

Things got a little heated in the second half.

The screaming started when Missouri freshman midfielder Lauren Selaiden was ran out of bounds and pushed down on to the rubber track less than five minutes into the half.

“I think we got pulled into a little bit of the unnecessary parts of the game, refereeing and stuff like that,” Blitz said. “So I thought we lost our composure a little bit.”

Blitz was not pleased with how he handled the physical and feisty nature of the game from the sidelines.

“I should have done a little bit better job,” he said. “I thought we probably didn’t handle that as well as we should.”

The Missouri players and bench erupted when Selaiden went down. The black and gold Tigers went on the attack but, in the madness, left the counter wide open.

Auburn’s forward Casie Ramsier found herself with the ball in the open heading into Missouri’s box. Mizzou junior goalkeeper McKenzie Sauerwein charged and smacked the ball away, but ran into her own defender in the process. The ball ricocheted off the Missouri players and landed at Ramsier’s feet. Ramsier tapped the ball into the empty net in the 52nd minute to give Auburn a 1-0 lead.

Missouri responded five minutes later. Junior midfielder Kaysie Clark sent a free kick into the box. Selaiden met the ball midair and sent a screeching header into the back of the net to tie the game at 1-1.

That was all the scoring two teams playing for their post-season lives could muster.

The Tigers of Missouri came oh-so close, but fell short. Despite the less than satisfactory result, the Missouri side is staying positive.

“This is our most successful weekend with four points overall in the (Southeastern Conference),” Blitz said. “So, we’re going to take that positive and move forward to next week.”